The Best NAS for Most Home Users

After testing 10 of the latest two-bay NAS devices, we've chosen the QNAP Turbo NAS TS-251 as our new top pick for home users. If the TS-251 is sold out, we recommend the less expensive (and slightly less powerful) Synology DS214. If you’ve never used a NAS before, try the especially user-friendly Western Digital My Cloud Mirror.

May 13, 2015:
After weeks of testing, we've identified the QNAP TS-251 as the best home NAS for most people. It has powerful hardware and software, an easy-to-use UI, and an HDMI port so you can connect it directly to a TV for media playback. The Synology DS214 is a close second, but the QNAP has a more powerful CPU and RAM for around the same price, and the RAM is upgradeable, which means it'll last longer. We're wrapping up edits on our full guide, which should be published by the end of May.

April 2, 2015:
We know this guide has been on wait status for a long time--too long, and we're sorry about that. After several delays, we are now actively working on an update, and plan to publish our latest research and findings by mid-May. Please check back then.

August 4, 2014: Important: If you have our pick or any Synology NAS, update your DiskStation Manager software immediately. Synology tells us that their DiskStation software is undergoing a bitcoin ransomware hack called SynoLock. Synology says, "It’s a BitCoin Mining hack that encrypts portions of data, and ransoms the decryption key for .6 BitCoin ($350). So far, it looks like the matter is localized to non-updated versions of DSM 4.3, but we are actively working on, and researching the issue to see if it also effects DSM 5.0 as well.

In the interim, we are asking people to take the following precautions:

A. Close all open ports for external access as soon as possible, and/or unplug your Disk/RackStation from your router

B. Update DSM to the latest version

C. Backup your data as soon as possible

D. Synology will provide further information as soon as it is available.

If your NAS has been infected:

A. Do not trust/ignore any email from unauthorized/non-genuine Synology email. Synology email always has the “synology.com” address suffix.

B. Do a hard shutdown of your Disk/RackStation to prevent any further issues. This entails a long-press of your unit’s power button, until a long beep has been heard. The unit will shut itself down safely from that point.

October 29, 2013:
Setting this to wait status while we refresh this guide. We plan to take a look at the entire field, including the latest from Synology, the DS214play, which allows 1080p video streaming.

May 8, 2013:
Synology just announced a refresh to the lower-end cousin to our top pick, DS213J. At $220, it's $100 cheaper than our top pick but you lose Wi-Fi and USB 3.0. It has double the DRAM of the DS212J it replaces and a new processor with floating point (still just 1.2 GHz though). If saving money is more important than speed, this might be a good step down choice, but we still recommend spending the extra money since this is a long term investment.

November 1, 2012:
We've updated our pick from the DS212 to the DiskStation DS213, an annual refresh with a faster processor and more RAM. It costs the same $300. While reviewers haven't scored the DS213, it should perform better than its predecessor, and the software experience is unchanged.

After three weeks of researching and hands-on testing a total of 10 of the latest two-bay network-attached storage devices, we found that the QNAP Turbo NAS TS-251 ($320 without disks) is the best home NAS right now for people who need one at home. It was one of the fastest we tested, and it was the fastest in write speed of the entire group. It offers hardware more powerful than that of most NAS devices in its price range, it has upgradable RAM, and it comes with flexible, powerful software that does everything most NAS users need.

The TS-251 has remote access that’s easy to configure, plus mobile apps for media streaming and the most third-party apps of any NAS we tested. You can use the TS-251 as a media streamer, a home backup device, a mail server, a website hosting device, a BitTorrent box, a video surveillance recorder, a Plex Media Server—nearly anything you can do with a Linux computer. It even has an HDMI port so you can connect it directly to your home theater setup.

Less expensive than the QNAP TS-251 and offering very good performance, the Synology DS214 is a solid home NAS, but its memory is limited to 512 MB and the ARM processor isn’t as robust as the TS-251’s.

If our top pick is sold out or the price increases, or if you want to save a little money and you don’t care about an HDMI port, the $290 Synology DiskStation DS214 (shipped diskless) is the next best choice. The DS214 offers most of the same features as the TS-251, and its software is just as good, but it has a less powerful CPU, only 512MB of RAM (half the amount of the base TS-251, and non-upgradable), and no HDMI connection.

The Western Digital My Cloud Mirror could be called “a NAS for those who have never used a NAS.” Write speed is about average, but read speed is excellent. It lacks the features of other NAS devices tested, but it’s super user-friendly.

Although QNAP and Synology NAS devices are relatively easy to set up and manage, they’re still too complicated for a lot of people. If you need just a basic NAS for backups, file storage, and media streaming, get the Western Digital My Cloud Mirror. It has the same data protection, media streaming, and remote data-access capabilities as our top picks do, minus some more esoteric features—you won’t be using it, for instance, as a DVR for your webcams.

The My Cloud Mirror is best for someone who has never touched a NAS before, or who wants only basic features. It provides a lot of hand-holding during setup, and Western Digital’s website offers tons of help resources, including an online Learning Center with detailed lessons and videos. It’s an easier-to-use two-bay NAS for novices, because the mirrored drives are installed and set up for you when the NAS arrives. The My Cloud Mirror is available in configurations of 4 TB for $290, 6 TB for $380, 8 TB for $435, 10 TB for $660, and 12 TB for $700.

Why you should trust me

I’ve worked with networked storage since the 1990s, spending almost 20 years in IT. I’ve tested most of the major consumer and small-business NAS devices over the past seven years for a variety of tech magazines and websites, including PCMag, CRN, and CRN Tech.

Who is this technology for?

If you’re reading this guide, you probably already want a home NAS. A network-attached storage device is a small computer with an Internet connection, at least one but usually two or more hard drive bays, a (usually) Linux-based operating system optimized for network storage, and enough CPU power and RAM to run everything.

A NAS is great for people with large media libraries: You can store all your files in one place and stream them to computers, speakers, or media centers throughout the house. You can also back up your computers to the NAS and avoid connecting an external drive to every computer. Any NAS allows you to do such things. Most models—even home NAS devices—can also act as email, database, and virtual private network servers; BitTorrent boxes; hosts for CMS, CRM, and e-commerce software; and DVRs for network cameras. Depending on your patience and your tech savvy, a NAS can do almost anything a Linux computer can do, while using less energy. The power and flexibility are great, but they can make some NAS devices confusing to use.

Most people don’t need to store thousands of Raw photo files, gigabytes of lossless digital music, or backups of their Blu-ray collection, but some people do, and for those people a NAS can be a great tool.

If you had asked me 10 years ago which types of home users needed a NAS, I would have said, “None, really.” But times have changed, and people need to store more data. Business Insider estimates that the average person had about 44.5 GB of data back in 2007; the number is surely much larger now. If you have a large media collection, you could have terabytes of data you need to keep backed up and accessible. Most people don’t need to store thousands of Raw photo files, gigabytes of lossless digital music, or backups of their Blu-ray collection, but some people do, and for those people a NAS can be a great tool.

A NAS is also useful if you have too much data to back up to Dropbox or Google Drive, or if you just don’t trust your data to cloud storage providers. When you use a NAS, your data remains in your home and does not go to the cloud. Of course, you’ll still want offsite backup of your NAS contents, so you’ll need to back up to an external drive for storage elsewhere—or you may just have to trust the cloud at some point.

If you simply want to share and store data on your network, you may not need a NAS at all. Many routers have USB ports to which you can attach an external drive, but this arrangement will be slow and suitable only for the most basic file sharing. It will also lack any data redundancy, so you’re taking your chances in case of a drive failure.

You could make your own NAS with old computer hardware and free software such as FreeNAS, but a dedicated NAS device uses far less power (usually only as much as a couple of LED bulbs), has a better interface and more apps, and comes with a manufacturer warranty and technical support.

If you are seeking a suitable NAS device for your home network, this guide is for you. If you are an IT professional or storage guru looking for a business NAS, this guide is not for you. Nor does this guide cover more advanced uses of NAS such as iSCSI targeting, SANs (storage area networks), or RAID configurations such as RAID 5, 6, or 10 for multidrive NAS devices. A lot of websites focused on enterprise network storage, such as Computer Weekly and StorageReview.com, can help you in those cases.

Finally, this guide is not for people who want a NAS that can support 1080p on-the-fly video transcoding via Plex Media Server. Almost every NAS we recommend supports Plex, and many can manage on-the-fly transcoding with their own apps, but for now Plex transcoding requires a lot of CPU power. NAS boxes that can manage 1080p OTF transcoding through Plex are too expensive to be worthwhile. You’re better off running Plex Media Server on a computer and using the NAS for media storage only.

How we picked

…a NAS with two 6TB drives in RAID 1 has 6 TB of space available, not 12 TB…

Hundreds of NAS devices are available, and you can find models with one, two, four, or even eight or more drive bays. For home users, a two-drive NAS is just right. Such a model protects your data by mirroring the contents of one drive to the other (a configuration known as RAID 1). This arrangement halves the amount of storage the NAS offers—a NAS with two 6TB drives in RAID 1 has 6 TB of space available, not 12 TB—but as a result your data remains safe and accessible even if a drive fails. You still need to back up your NAS, either to the cloud or to an external drive connected to the NAS and then stored offsite (or both), but a mirrored array means your NAS should never have downtime.

Single-drive NAS or “personal cloud” devices don’t provide the added data protection of drive mirroring, while NAS boxes with more drives are more complicated to manage and are likely overkill for most home users. If you want more than two bays, both our main pick and our runner-up have four-bay versions.

We started our evaluation by assembling a list of every two-bay NAS from a reputable vendor. The biggest names in home NAS are Asustor, QNAP, Seagate, Synology, and Western Digital, though we also considered models by Netgear, Thecus, and ZyXEL. We also read NAS reviews on sites like CNET, PCWorld, SmallNetBuilder, and StorageReview.com.

We looked at consumer reviews on Amazon and Newegg, and surveyed 1,094 Wirecutter readers on what they wanted in a home NAS.

Based on our research, we looked for two-bay NAS devices that were released in the past year or so, or that had a significant software update in that time. They needed to offer at least 512 MB of memory and a reasonably powerful processor, have hot-swappable drive bays (so you don’t have to shut down the NAS to replace a failed drive or increase the box’s capacity), and cost less than $350 without disks. We looked for NAS devices with at least one USB port, since those are useful for backing up the contents of the NAS to an external drive and vice versa.

Most of the readers in our survey said they wanted a NAS with a highly configurable Linux-based OS, so we focused on those models instead of “personal cloud” devices that are less flexible (though we have a pick for that category, too).

A NAS needs to be easy to set up as a network file server, simple to configure for local computer backup, and ready to use for streaming video, music, and photos. Based on the results of the survey, we looked for NAS devices that support computer backup via Windows, Time Machine, and rsync; music streaming via DLNA and iTunes; VPN and FTP access; and cloud backup. We also looked for NAS devices with good mobile apps and remote access (via port forwarding or a cloud service). Compatibility with third-party apps such as BitTorrent, CrashPlan, and Plex Media Server was a bonus.

Nice-to-have features include email, website hosting, and video surveillance; folder or hardware-level encryption; the ability to use a USB Wi-Fi dongle; USB support for UPS batteries, printers, and other devices; solid-state drive support; and SSL certificate uploading for extra security.

After considering all those criteria, we decided to compare the following NAS devices:

I recently tested both the Asustor AS-202TE and the Western Digital My Cloud EX2. From research, I couldn’t find any significant recent hardware or software updates to those NAS devices, so I relied on my past testing results and experience.

The other six NAS boxes—the Asustor AS-5002T, QNAP TS-251, Seagate Personal Cloud, Synology BeyondCloud Mirror, Synology DiskStation DS214, and Western Digital My Cloud Mirror—were either new or had a major firmware release since I last tested them, so I called them in.

How we tested

First we set up each NAS following the install guide included in the package, if there was one. Next we looked at the user interface’s organization and features. We tested ease of use by configuring user and group accounts, as well as file and folder access permissions. We checked to see if the NAS offered a secured cloud service for remote access so you don’t have to mess with port forwarding and static IP addresses. We also looked at Android and iOS mobile apps for accessing and administering the NAS (Windows Phone has virtually zero support, so we didn’t take that into account). We copied about 5 GB of videos, documents, and photos to each NAS to see how easy uploading and downloading files was.

The easiest way to measure real-world NAS performance is to copy a large file to and from the NAS and calculate the data rate. We connected each NAS via Gigabit Ethernet to TP-Link’s Archer C9 Gigabit Router. To test read and write performance, we connected a Dell Latitude 3550 laptop to another one of the router’s Ethernet ports and copied a 1.48GB video file between the laptop and NAS. We measured the file-copy speed in megabytes per second, first copying the files via Windows Explorer and then using the NAS’s built-in file manager. The latter is often slower; this test checked for any significant difference.

We tested read and write performance by copying a 1.48GB file between each NAS and a Dell Latitude 3550 laptop, each connected to the same router via Ethernet.

To simulate drive failure, we pulled a drive from the NAS while it was running. A NAS should beep or flash an LED to alert a user that something is wrong, and the interface should show a notification of drive failure. If the NAS allows you to set up SMS or email alerts, that’s even better. If a drive fails and the NAS doesn’t notify you, you’re at risk of data loss if the second drive fails as well.

Next we replaced the pulled drive with one of equal or greater capacity. A NAS should detect a new drive and automatically re-create the mirrored array. With each device, as the RAID 1 mirror rebuilt, we tested to confirm that all data stored on the NAS was intact and accessible.

This process also allowed us to test the quality of the NAS’s drive bays. A good NAS has drive bays that are easy to remove but sturdy enough to ensure that the drives fit securely.

We then connected a flash drive to one of the USB ports. A NAS interface should recognize a connected drive and display its make, model, and file system. It should allow transfers between the USB drive and the NAS, and if the NAS supports one-touch USB copy backup, the settings for one-touch should recognize the connected drive.

Finally, we looked at warranty and support options. Lack of customer support is one of the most common complaints in Amazon NAS reviews. Most of the NAS devices we tested offer two- to three-year warranties. Most also offer some form of support, largely through user forums and online knowledge bases. Some have email and phone support, and a few vendors also provide detailed, accessible tutorials and videos on their websites.

In most cases, every NAS from the same company runs the same operating system and has the same features. They differ in the number of drive bays, the specific CPU and amount of RAM installed, and the number of hardware ports. They can have minor differences in build quality, as well.

The QNAP Turbo NAS TS-251 ($320 diskless) is the best two-bay home NAS for most users. It has the fastest write performance and the second-fastest read times of any NAS we tested, it offers an easy-to-use and flexible interface with a wide array of available apps, and it supports all the features Wirecutter readers say they want in a NAS. Unlike most NAS devices, it also has an HDMI port, so you can connect it directly to your entertainment setup for use as a home theater PC.

Equipped with an Intel Celeron processor and memory upgradable up to 8 GB, the TS-251 has more powerful hardware than most NAS devices in its price range, so it should last many years. Its Linux-based OS is more complicated than most people are used to, but anyone who has worked with a Windows or Mac desktop should be able to set it up.

The TS-251’s hot-swap trays make removing and installing drives easy, but the trays are flimsier than we’d like.

Most NAS devices in this price range use slower Intel Atom or ARM-based processors and have 1 GB of RAM or less. The TS-251 ships with an Intel Celeron 2.41GHz dual-core processor and either 1 GB or 4 GB of RAM, which you can expand up to 8 GB with off-the-shelf RAM modules. It has two USB 2.0 ports and two USB 3.0 ports, and it’s one of only two NAS devices we tested for this guide that include an HDMI port (the other is the Asustor AS-5002T, which also has an S/PDIF audio port).

The TS-251 has two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports (one on the front), two Gigabit Ethernet ports, and an HDMI port.

The TS-251 is also one of only two NAS devices we tested that has dual Gigabit Ethernet ports (the other is the Asustor AS-5002T). The Ethernet ports support link aggregation, which lets you combine the speed of both ports for a faster connection, but that function isn’t much use to the average user since most home routers don’t support link aggregation. At least you have a second Ethernet port in case something goes wrong with the first one.

A one-touch copy button sits on the front of the TS-251. Once you’ve selected the files or folders you want to copy, pushing this button will automatically copy those files to an external drive connected to the front USB port—perfect for periodic backup of valuable data.

LEDs on the front of the NAS show drive, network, and power status, as well as whether a USB drive is connected. The TS-251 has an IR receiver, too, so if you’re using it as an HTPC you can control media playback by using the QNAP RM-IR002 remote control or another MCE remote, or by installing QNAP’s Qremote app (though it works only in QNAP’s HD Station app).

Note the one-touch copy button and extra USB 3.0 port on the front.

The NAS software did not force me to change the admin password after login, so you’ll want to do this task first.

The TS-251’s interface (called QTS) is colorful, easy to work with, and visually inspired by Mac OS X. Icons even bounce the way they do in OS X before an app opens. When you open QTS in your browser, it prompts you to log in, but the default username and password (“admin” and “admin”) are not documented anywhere in the NAS’s setup materials. The NAS software did not force me to change the admin password after login, so you’ll want to do this task first. From the top-right corner of the QTS home page, click or tap on the “admin” option in the menu, and then choose “change password.”

The QTS home page, including streaming, file management, remote access, and backup apps.

Like most of the NAS operating systems we tested, the QTS home page includes a widget that gives an overview of the NAS’s drive health, CPU and RAM usage, and system temperature. The widget also has a news ticker that keeps you posted on the latest updates and news about QNAP and your NAS.

QNAP’s easy-to-configure myQNAPcloud service lets you access the files on your NAS when you’re away from home. If you’re paranoid and you don’t want any part of anyone’s cloud service, you can access your NAS without it through a virtual private network or DDNS (Dynamic DNS) and good old-fashioned port forwarding. But for most people myQNAPcloud will be much simpler.

QNAP has many mobile apps—maybe too many. Qfile, Qmobile, Qmusic, Qphoto, and Qvideo are for accessing media. Qmanager is one of the few good remote-management apps available for any NAS, offering access to system tools, user settings and permissions, download controls, and more. Remote management may not be important to most home users, but if it is important to you, QNAP’s app is the best.

Qmanager is one of the best remote-management apps for any NAS, but most people probably don’t need it.

QNAP also gives you the option to secure remote and app access by enabling HTTPS. It’s easy to do with just a click in the remote-access or app settings. The TS-251’s other security features cover volume encryption and uploading SSL certificates.

Like most other home NAS devices, the TS-251 supports multimedia streaming. This model has an iTunes server and a DLNA media server with a media library. I was able to scan my network for any DLNA devices and have the media library detect multimedia content across my network. And the device’s inclusion of an HDMI port makes it an ideal multimedia box, since you can connect the TS-251 directly to a TV or receiver for playback of your media files without the need for transcoding.

Music files within Music Station’s iTunes-esque interface.

QTS also supports on-the-fly and offline high-definition video transcoding, so you can store HD video on the TS-251 and stream it to another device in a format that particular device supports. Michael Passingham at ExpertReviews said that the TS-251 can transcode files as soon as they are copied to the NAS. Passingham also says that transcoding 240p, 360p, 480p, 720p and 1080p files on the TS-251 “worked without a hitch,” and calls OTF transcoding “seamless.” This was not our experience.

We had trouble streaming a 1080p .MKV video from the NAS to the Qvideo app on an HTC One via 802.11ac Wi-Fi. It played, but suffered from a lot of stutter. Transcoding in 720p wasn’t much better.

The Qvideo OTF transcoding prompt.

A non-HD .MPEG movie clip transcoded fine. And my .MP4 1080p video of the trailer for I Am Legend played beautifully on the HTC One through Qvideo. As mentioned above, if you have a large video collection and you’re serious about on-the-fly video transcoding, you should use a more powerful computer for the job; it’s just not cost-effective to transcode on a NAS.

Even though your data is mirrored on the TS-251, you still need to back up the important data on your NAS (and you should store that backup somewhere offsite). You can back up to another NAS or server, to Elephant Drive or Amazon’s S3 cloud service, or to a USB drive connected to the TS-251. You can schedule backups or perform them on the fly. You can also install third-party backup options from the QNAP App Center, including CrashPlan (though running CrashPlan on a NAS is not officially supported).

The TS-251 had the best performance of any NAS we tested, which shouldn’t be too surprising considering its specs.

The TS-251 had the best performance of any NAS we tested, which shouldn’t be too surprising considering its specs. First of all, it has an Intel Celeron dual-core processor, whereas most NAS devices in its price range use ARM or Atom mobile processors. (The exception is the Asustor AS-5002T, which uses the same dual-core Celeron processor as the QNAP.) The TS-251 also ships with 1 GB of RAM, twice as much as most NAS devices in its price range offer, and unlike nearly all of them (except the Asustor), it allows you to upgrade the RAM later.

In our tests the TS-251 posted a read speed of 114 MB/s and a write speed of 97 MB/s. For perspective, here are the hardware specs of the other NAS devices we benchmarked it against:

NAS

Processor

Total memory capacity

Total storage capacity

Drives tested

Memory tested

Asustor AS-5002T

Intel Celeron 2.41GHz dual-core

8GB

12TB (6TB with drive mirroring)

2x6TB Western Digital Red (WD60EFRX)

1GB

QNAP Turbo NAS TS-251

Intel Celeron 2.41GHz dual-core

8GB

12TB (6TB with drive mirroring)

2x6TB Western Digital Red (WD60EFRX)

1GB

Synology BeyondCloud BC214se 2300

Marvell Armada 370 88F6707 800MHz

256MB

6TB (3TB with drive mirroring)

2x2TB Western Digital Red (WD20EFRX-68EUZN0)

256MB

Synology DiskStation DS214

Marvell Armada XP MV78230 dual-core 1.066GHz

512MB

12TB (6TB with drive mirroring)

2x6TB Western Digital Red (WD60EFRX)

512MB

Western Digital My Cloud Mirror

1.2GHz

512MB

12TB (6TB with drive mirroring)

2x2TB Western Digital Red (WD20EFRX-68EUZN0)

512MB

NAS performance results compared.

Data protection works well. With the TS-251 running, I pulled the drive from the second bay. The NAS beeped twice, the status LED flashed red, and a drive failure notification popped up in QTS. The Storage Manager app reported that the RAID was degraded.

I replaced the pulled drive with another Seagate hard drive. The NAS beeped again, and Storage Manager detected the new drive and started rebuilding the RAID. As with any high-capacity RAID, this process took hours.

The TS-251 also had low power consumption in our tests. During the drive-mirror rebuild, the TS-251 used 18 to 20 watts, which is around standard for a NAS, but when the drives weren’t active, it used 9.5 to 10 watts. That’s about as much as one LED light bulb. Other NAS devices I tested had trouble dropping into a low-power state, except for the Asustor AS-5002T, which also proved to be a low-energy consumer at 8.6 watts in standby mode.

Power consumption in operation and standby modes.

The QNAP NAS has several energy-savings options, including power on/off scheduling and a feature called EUP Mode Configuration. With this option enabled, Wake-on-LAN, AC power resumption, and other energy-consuming features are disabled.

A bonus: The TS-251 is the only NAS we tested that supports virtualization, so you can run Windows, Mac, UNIX, Linux, and Android virtual machines on it.

As much as we like this NAS, you still may encounter issues or questions when using it, as with any piece of technology. The TS-251 comes with a two-year warranty, and QNAP offers phone support, an online form for submitting questions and comments, a community forum, a knowledge base, and online tutorials.

Who else likes this device?

It’s hard to find sites that consistently review NAS devices. Each vendor offers dozens or even hundreds of models, so covering just a portion of them is a formidable task.

SmallNetBuilder has the most consistent and in-depth NAS reviews, though its reviewers focus more on file-copy performance than on ease of use. SmallNetBuilder’s Craig Ellison praises the performance of the TS-251: “There’s no question that the TS-251 and TS-451 are high-performance NASes capable of large sequential file reads and writes of over 100 MB/s.” But Ellison also notes that “it’s not clear that the switch to Intel’s Bay Trail processor provides a price / performance point that you can’t already get with existing QNAP models.”

At PCWorld, Jon L. Jacobi commends the TS-251 for its “good performance” and “massive software feature set,” mentioning that it “can replace several devices.” But he also says that the QNAP’s OTF transcoding is not “up to snuff.”

Amazon users like the TS-251. Currently, out of 89 reviews, 68 give the device five stars. Many users like the software features, the multimedia capabilities, and the backup options. The device’s transcoding capabilities receive both good and bad reviews.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The TS-251’s tacky white plastic housing is the biggest blemish on an otherwise spectacular piece of hardware. The material seems susceptible to looking beat-up pretty fast (presumably, the TS-251’s plastic keeps the device’s price down, but the Asustor AS-5002T’s gunmetal-gray casing is better). Even during our testing, the white plastic started to discolor and scuff. More important, the drive bays are made from that same thin plastic material, so they may not hold up well to repeated drive swaps.

The white plastic enclosure of the TS-251 is prone to scuffs and discoloration.

Other reviewers have noticed the cheap design. PCWorld’s Jacobi writes that “the company penny-pinched on the TS-251’s enclosure.” And an Amazon customer mentions that the “white soapbox plastic case is just a letdown.”

Like us, Tim Higgins at SmallNetBuilder had issues with the automatic transcoding feature, in his case testing on a Samsung Galaxy Tab S and a Roku 3. He mentions that QNAP is working on ironing out some of these issues, and says, “For now at least, Synology has a big edge over QNAP when it comes to ease of use for on-the-fly transcoding.” The general consensus from our research is that Synology devices, specifically the DS214play and DS415play models, do a better job at transcoding than the QNAP TS-251—but again, most people who are interested in hardware transcoding are interested in doing so via Plex Media Server, and they’re better off using an inexpensive computer instead of a NAS.

Some Amazon reviewers complain about the TS-251 being unsuitable for those new to working with network-attached storage. “Not a simple device for the ‘plug and play’ crowd,” is how one Amazon reviewer puts it. If you’re looking for a simpler NAS and you don’t need features like a webcam DVR, an email server, or an HDMI port, you should get the Western Digital MyCloud Mirror, discussed below.

Runner-up: Synology DiskStation DS214

Less expensive than the QNAP TS-251 and offering very good performance, the Synology DS214 is a solid home NAS, but its memory is limited to 512 MB and the ARM processor isn’t as robust as the TS-251’s.

If you don’t care about an HDMI port, dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, or an IR receiver, and you want to save a little money, consider the Synology DiskStation DS214 ($290 without disks). Its operating system, DSM, is as powerful and feature-packed as QNAP’s, and its performance is almost as good. The DS214 has a dual-core 1.066GHz ARM-based Marvell CPU and 512 MB of RAM, so it isn’t as powerful as the TS-251, which has an Intel Bay Trail processor. The big concern is the memory: The DS214 has half the RAM of our main pick as tested, and unlike the TS-251 and the Asustor AS-5002T, this NAS doesn’t let you add RAM later.

The Synology DS214 without its front cover. Its drive trays are more solid than the QNAP’s, but this NAS has a less powerful CPU and no HDMI port.

Even with its lower specs, however, it delivered good performance in our tests, producing a read speed of 102 MB/s and a write speed of 92 MB/s. Those results are just a little worse than the TS-251’s read and write rates (we tested both devices using the same set of 6TB Western Digital Red NAS drives). Given this, we had a hard time choosing between the QNAP TS-251 and the Synology DS214.

Synology and QNAP are the two most well-respected names in home NAS by a huge margin, and their NAS boxes usually top best-of lists. Their devices have very similar operating systems and features. In our August 2014 survey, 66 percent of readers said they trusted the Synology name, and 25 percent said they trusted QNAP. No other NAS maker scored higher than 14 percent, and most manufacturers were in the single digits.

The DS214 is about the same size and weight as the TS-251, measuring 6.4 by 4.2 by 9.1 inches (height by width by depth) and weighing 2.8 pounds (diskless). It’s built of sturdier material than the TS-251 is, with a black metal casing. The drive bays are also easier to work with—attached handles make sliding drives in and out a breeze. And the DS214 is the only NAS we tested that has a drive door cover, though it does not lock.

Synology’s excellent user interface, called DSM (DiskStation Manager), is similar to QNAP’s QTS and offers the same features, including media streaming capabilities, a file manager, photo and video apps, video surveillance functions, backup options, and a Package Center from which you can install many more apps such as Asterisk, Directory Services, Drupal, and Joomla. I did not see Plex Media Server among the selection, though you can install it via Plex’s website.

The DiskStation Manager interface.

Remote access is available through Synology’s QuickConnect service. You can also find mobile apps for accessing data on the DS214 from both iOS and Android. DS Cloud lets you choose folders on your DiskStation that you want to sync to your mobile device for offline viewing. Another app, DS Finder, monitors the status of the DiskStation and gives you some control over it. A link in DS Finder allows you to open a mobile version of the DSM.

Synology also has several mobile apps for streaming multimedia files: DS Audio, DS Photo, and DS Video. To use them, you have to enable the appropriate service that corresponds with each app. For example, before you can use DS Photo, Photo Station must be enabled on the NAS (which it is by default).

Like the TS-251, the two-bay DS214 supports drive mirroring and adequately reports drive failure. During testing it rebuilt its array without trouble.

Synology also provides a two-year warranty and excellent support over the phone and via an online forum, plus a knowledge base and tutorials.

The DS214 gets good reviews, including one from StorageReview.com; it has a 4.4-star average on Amazon.

Our main pick but with more drive bays

The QNAP TS-451 has the same hardware and software as the TS-251, but offers two more drive bays for extra data protection and storage.

A two-bay NAS is the best option for most people, but if you need more capacity or data protection, get the QNAP TS-451. It has the same CPU and RAM specs as the TS-251, but with two more drive bays.

A NAS with four or more bays gives you more storage options than a two-bay NAS does. For starters, you can opt for RAID 5, 6, or 10. These are data storage configurations that require three or more disks, provide better data protection, and (depending on which RAID configuration you choose), can ramp up performance. A four-bay NAS also lets you expand your storage capacity more easily. You can start with two drives and add more as needed, whereas the only way to expand the storage space on a two-bay NAS is to replace first one drive, then the other, with a higher-capacity model.

Four-drive NAS devices are typically suitable for professional settings—and if you want to use one, having a good understanding of RAID storage management will help. But if you have the extra dollars, want additional security and space, and don’t mind learning more about RAID, the TS-451 is a good bet.

Easier to use but less powerful

The Western Digital My Cloud Mirror could be called “a NAS for those who have never used a NAS.” Write speed is about average, but read speed is excellent. It lacks the features of other NAS devices tested, but it’s super user-friendly.

The QNAP TS-251 and Synology DS214 are relatively easy to set up and manage thanks to their great user interfaces, but they are still complicated, even for experienced computer users. If you want a NAS for file storage, backup, and media streaming but don’t need more esoteric features like a mail server, network camera recording, or a website server, consider the Western Digital My Cloud Mirror instead. Since it ships with hard drives, the My Cloud Mirror can also help keep your wallet fat: The 2x2TB model costs $280 while the top-of-the-line 2x6TB version is $700.

Unlike with the other NAS devices we tested, the WD My Cloud Mirror’s hard drives load from the top, not the front.

The My Cloud Mirror’s user interface is elegant, modern, and designed to help you find settings quickly and easily. Most of the main settings are either on the device’s home page or accessible via a scrollable menu of icons across the top of the page.

The My Cloud Mirror’s user interface.

The My Cloud Mirror has the same basic features as every other NAS we tested. It provides drive mirroring, and the drives are hot-swappable. You can add users and groups, as well as folders, to organize data and manage who accesses the NAS. The “My Cloud” in the name refers to the ability to access your data on the NAS from anywhere using a desktop or Western Digital’s mobile apps—a personal cloud, if you will. (Our main pick and runner-up offer such a feature as well, but WD’s NAS makes the process easier.) You can also transfer files between the NAS and Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft’s OneDrive.

The My Cloud Mirror is missing some features. This NAS has two USB 3.0 ports, but they support only USB storage—QNAP’s and Synology’s ports, in contrast, support printers, UPS, Wi-Fi dongles, and other devices. The My Cloud Mirror’s interface also offers no way to interact with a connected flash drive. You can’t just use the interface’s file manager to copy files to and from the USB drive; instead you must manually map to the connected USB drive from Windows Explorer or your Mac’s Finder. This is not the case with the other two NAS devices.

You can’t upload an SSL certificate to the My Cloud Mirror, but cloud access is encrypted. WD has fewer available third-party apps than either QNAP or Synology, but it does support Dropbox, Git, Transmission, WordPress, and more.

I reviewed the My Cloud Mirror in June 2014 for PCMag, and gave it four stars (out of five) and an Editors’ Choice award. Dong Ngo at CNET gave the single-drive version four stars, calling it “one of the best deals for home users.” The My Cloud Mirror has a 3.5-star average on Amazon.

If you’d rather have a simple, easy-to-use NAS instead of a more flexible but complicated one that does a bunch of stuff you don’t need, the Western Digital My Cloud Mirror is your best bet. It offers a lot of hand-holding during setup, and you can find tons of help resources for using this NAS on Western Digital’s website.

Care and maintenance

When you first set up a NAS, it prompts you to log in to its interface via a browser, typically with the “admin” account and no password. Very few NAS devices prompt you to change or reset the admin password, which is a crucial security feature because the NAS connects to the Internet and thus is a ripe target for threats. So the first thing to do with any new NAS is to change the password on the admin account. The Synology DS214 asked me to change the password after I reinstalled its OS, but not when I first set it up. The Western Digital My Cloud Mirror didn’t prompt for a password change, but at least the password field displayed “No password created” as a reminder after I logged in a second time.

Creating a unique user account for anyone who accesses your NAS is a good idea. You can do so on any of the NAS devices we tested by going into the Users settings in the interface. Be sure to give each user the appropriate permissions—you don’t want everyone to have god-level admin access to your NAS! If you want to give someone the ability to upload files to the NAS, give a user write permissions as well as read permissions. If someone should only download files, make them a read-only user.

Maintaining a NAS doesn’t take much effort, but you should keep a few things in mind. Because a NAS is almost always on, ensure that it gets sufficient airflow. Make sure to place it somewhere that doesn’t get too hot. Confirm that the back panel has a few inches of clearance so as not to obstruct the exhaust fan. When something goes wrong with a NAS, the culprit is usually hard drive failure. According to this article from Seagate, temperature extremes are one of the top five causes of hard drive failure.

Data corruption is another big issue with hard drives. Since most of these NAS devices ship diskless, you’ll have to provide and install your own drives. Be sure to check the compatibility list of hard drives on the NAS vendor’s website so that you install supported drives. Otherwise, if something goes wrong with the NAS, you may have problems getting customer support—or worse, you may void the warranty.

The same rule applies to memory: If you buy a NAS to which you can add RAM, check with the vendor to make sure that you purchase supported memory.

Most of the NAS devices in this guide support Western Digital Red hard drives, which are specifically built for NAS use. WD engineers these drives to tolerate heat and vibration better than typical hard drives (though not as much as enterprise server drives), and as a result these drives are ideal for multidrive NAS setups. They’ve received accolades from both professional reviewers and NAS users because they provide good performance and large storage capacity at a decent price. TechRadar says, “The WD Red 6TB performs excellently, offers a gargantuan amount of storage and is a more affordable proposition than enterprise 6TB hard disks.” QNAP representatives told us about a specific batch of WD Red drives causing some issues with the QNAP NAS. I didn’t encounter any problems using the 6TB WD Red (ST4000NC000-1FR168) SATA drives, but it’s a good idea to check the hard drive compatibility list. TechRadar also notes some disk-performance sacrifices with WD Red drives. Seagate, another favored hard drive manufacturer for NAS, has its own line of drives specifically for this purpose.

Western Digital’s 6TB Red drive.

The competition

The Asustor AS-5002T has a solid, well-built metal casing, and it’s the heaviest among the two-bay NAS devices we tested. Like the QNAP TS-251, it has a dual-core Intel Celeron processor, upgradable RAM, and dual Gigabit Ethernet ports. It’s the only NAS we looked at that has two eSATA ports. The AS5002T provided the best read speeds in our testing at 115MB/s, but its write speeds were slower than those of either the TS-251 or the Synology DS214.

Its remote-access and mobile apps seem a bit immature and in need of some polishing. Also, Asustor’s support options are not as vast as QNAP’s and Synology’s; half of the online forum posts and knowledge base articles are not available in English. This model is still a solid option if you already know what you’re doing, but the TS-251 is better for most.

Asustor’s AS-202TE is another good NAS and is about $130 cheaper than the AS-5002T because of its weaker processor, an Intel Atom 1.2GHz Dual-Core. The two Asustor NAS boxes use the same ADM (Asustor Data Master) interface and have the same feature set.

The Seagate Personal Cloud 2-bay Home Media Storage Device is a direct competitor to the Western Digital My Cloud Mirror. Both devices target beginning NAS users, and they have the same specs, nearly the same feature set, and even the same pricing (around $280 for 4TB of storage). However, the Seagate device’s drives are not hot-swappable. This NAS also had the worst write performance of any NAS we tested, and the Personal Cloud ran a little hot, more so than the My Cloud Mirror. The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern prefers the Seagate Personal Cloud to the WD My Cloud Mirror, however, for its better media streaming to Chromecast and Roku devices.

StorageReview.com notes, “From a performance perspective the Personal Cloud isn’t a screamer, but has enough speed for what the vast majority will use it for.” Amazon reviewers also complain about some performance issues. With those considerations, we opted for the My Cloud Mirror as the user-friendly choice.

Synology’s DS214play is nearly identical to the DS214, except it has a dedicated hardware transcoding engine, uses a 1.6GHz dual-core Atom processor instead of ARM, and comes with more memory (1 GB versus the DS214’s 512 MB). It’s also more expensive at $360. It isn’t worth the extra dollars unless you’re set on using a NAS for transcoding. Still, if you need heavy-duty transcoding, you’ll likely want a dedicated computer built for that purpose anyway, since the DS214play’s CPU isn’t powerful enough for most 1080p on-the-fly transcoding with Plex.

You’ll rarely get a “bad” NAS from Synology, and the $150 DiskStation DS214se has the same great software as the DS214 and DS214play, but with just an 800MHz processor and only 256 MB of memory. It also lacks a USB 3.0 port. Even so, it received praise when it was released last year. CNET’s Dong Ngo writes, “The budget-minded Synology Disk Station DS214se is an excellent choice for home with casual backup, media-streaming, and data-sharing needs.” Ngo also observes that its hardware isn’t enough to handle multiple heavy tasks at a time.

The Synology BeyondCloud Mirror is a DS214se preconfigured with hard drives. Like the DS214se, its hardware is weaker than we recommend. Spending more money up front on a NAS with a better CPU and more RAM is worthwhile—your NAS will get software updates for many years, but it will always be limited by the hardware it starts with.

I tested the Western Digital My Cloud EX2 when it first shipped. The EX2 has the same interface and the same hardware specs as the My Cloud Mirror, with a Marvell 1.2GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM. I recall easy setup and cloud access, as with the My Cloud Mirror, but despite its specs its write performance (again, as with the My Cloud Mirror) was underwhelming at just 54 MB/s. This NAS also ran a little hot. Jon L. Jacobi at PCWorld says that read speeds are significantly lower than average, too. And SmallNetBuilder sums up the EX2 with “Great features; disappointing performance.”

The difference between the My Cloud Mirror and the EX2 is that the EX2 is at the low end of Western Digital’s Expert series of NAS devices targeted at small businesses. It has additional business capabilities such as support for Active Directory, volume virtualization, and a wide range of integrated third-party business apps.

It costs $160 without disks, but you can order it preconfigured with disks starting at 4 TB for $330 and up to 12 TB for $625. It has a 3.8-star average on Amazon. Since you can purchase the My Cloud Mirror with 4 TB for almost $60 less than the EX2, the My Cloud Mirror is a better buy, unless you need the EX2’s business features. Most people don’t.

I reviewed the four-drive version of the Netgear ReadyNAS 102 2-Bay Diskless Network Attached Storage (RN10200-100NAS) two years ago. It had a somewhat confusing interface, though the performance was okay. Since Netgear uses the same OS across its ReadyNAS line, the software and features in the two models are identical, although performance may vary between the two-bay model and the four-bay version I tested.

The Thecus N2560 has the unfortunate distinction of being one of the worst NAS devices I’ve ever reviewed. RAID mirroring and drive recovery were a mess, dealbreakers for a multidrive NAS. It has one lonely review on Amazon; the reviewer gives it three out of five stars and notes the device’s lack of RAID quality.

ZyXEL’s 2-Bay High-Performance Digital Media Server and Network Attached Storage (NSA325) is a bargain NAS at $210. It has surprisingly robust hardware for the price. Specs aren’t detailed on ZyXEL’s site, but SmallNetBuilder broke down an NSA325 to reveal a Marvell 1.6GHz processor and 512 MB of memory. The issue with the NSA325 is hardware that’s difficult to work with. “Novices may find the sheer number of available settings intimidating,” Orestis Bastounis at PC Advisor says. Amazon reviewers also complain about the software, with criticisms ranging from “The software was a bit tricky at first” to “The GUI is horrid, convoluted, and difficult.” Users also mention instances of the NAS inexplicably rebooting and mysteriously disappearing from the network.

I’ve also reviewed the TerraMaster F2-NAS 2, and I can’t recommend it. During my tests, one issue was that some of the interface pages were in Chinese by default. And not because I changed the language settings. I also noted that the documentation that shipped with the NAS was atrociously unhelpful. Craig Ellison at SmallNetBuilder has a litany of criticisms, including a “lack of good documentation, very limited online help (FAQs) and non-based US support,” as well as “difficulties with setting up remote access, disk initialization issues, etc.” Skip it.

Last year’s model

Last year’s pick, the Synology DS213, earned that honor for its easy-to-configure, capable OS, its variety of software, its quiet performance, and its affordability. Synology has discontinued it in favor of the DS214, our runner-up this year, so if you were considering the DS213, get that model or our main pick, the QNAP TS-251, instead.

Wrapping it up

Although Synology’s NAS was the top choice last year and the company’s new model performs nearly as well as our top pick this year, you simply get more for your money with the QNAP TS-251. Thanks to the dual-core Intel processor and expandable memory, you shouldn’t have to upgrade for many years, and its HDMI port is a welcome addition for home entertainment use.

Our runner-up pick is the Synology DS214. It has comparable performance and features plus slightly better build quality, though you can’t upgrade its memory and it lacks an HDMI port. And if you want an entry-level NAS that can handle a lot of the same tasks as the QNAP and Synology models, but you need an especially friendly interface and guidance, consider the Western Digital My Cloud Mirror.

You can also install additional services like VPN on it. I have one for half a year now and it’s great.
DS212 seems like a little of downgrade compared to 211 in terms of usability.

Marius Piedallu van Wyk

Yup, the VPN works pretty well for me too.

http://openhalfwaythrough.com/ Mike

I have a DS110j, and the slower processor does suck for generating photo thumbs, but it’s otherwise a really phenomenal product, for a really attractive price. I just love that under the hood it’s a real linux machine that I can ssh into, create scripts on, set up cron jobs, use rsync, plug in a USB drive for backups, etc. Phenomenal product, especially for a home where all the computers are laptops.

Anonymous

I bit the bullet and bought a DS411j and put 4 2TB Samsung drives in it. I configred it in RAID 5, which gives me ~5.5TB of storage. RAID 5 isn’t a true data redundacy configuration, but still provides backup via parity without sacrificing as much storage as a mirror configuration. The web interface is great, and I appreciate the ability to connect other external drives via USB to make file transfers easy. I just bough the ASUS NT-56RU router, and I’m considering reloacting the 411j close to my router so I can connect it via gigabit!

As with anything, if I had unlimited funds, I would purchase a 412 (non-j, when they come to market) to make use of the SD slot on the front to quickly and easily transfer photos. I wonder if I could connect a card reader to my 411j?

Cromulent

The update paragraph is ambiguously worded. So which is quieter and cooler running? DS211 or 212?

Pavol

The updated DS213 came out a few days ago.

http://twitter.com/witz Jon Hurwitz

Ack, I just bought a DS212. FYI: The DS212 has USB 3.0, just like the 213…

http://www.facebook.com/ismar.iljazovic Ismar Iljazovic

Soooo.. this has had the WAIT graphic up for nearly a month. No news on this front yet?

Michael Zhao

Nope, sorry. Still waiting on reviews from credible sources. We’ll keep you posted.

Andrey

any good reason why these press photos are actually from two generations older DS211 model?

Karl

This review mentions the “junior” models, but seems ignores the “+” models out there.

Can anyone speak to the added benefits that would come from the $100 upgrade from the DS213 to the DS231+, particularly in terms of storing and streaming media throughout a network?

Marius Piedallu van Wyk

The DS213+ is mostly for when you have multiple clients constantly using it in parallel. It has double the cores (ARMv5 vs PPC) and uses a little bit more power. It can handle a bit more background processing, which could be significant if you do face recognition/thumb-nailing on a bazillion photos)

All else is the same and I can recommend the DS213. If you want to go high-end, then rather skip to the DS413(+) ranges… (which then also ads dual ethernet)

I lke the idea of the 411 slim. It takes 2.5″ drives, more power efficient, better response if you sleep your drives, and also supposedly higher MTBF

Anonymous

I just purchased this drive off Amazon for $199 and put a 2TB HD in it. The setup is really easy, if time consuming (the enclosed software took about 6 hours to index the drive). The UI is simple and powerful, allowing users to customize their drive, set up multiple users with specific access, web hosting and access, the whole nine yards.

I’m using it to replace a 2TB time capsule whose HD failed. It’s not quite as easy as the TC in a Mac only environment, but it’s certainly not in any way difficult. The option for a RAID system is what drove me to the purchase. The NAS and the 2TB drive cost me as much as the 2TB TC. This is clearly a better, more secure data storage system (once I get the second HD installed).

Colin Whooten

Does anybody have any experience with this drive, a MacBook Air, and Time Machine? I’ve tried (and failed) with two different cheaper NAS drives (Buffalo LinkStation and MyBookLive), and don’t know if I should go with something like this or the Apple Time Capsule? I just want something to reliably work for seamless backups behind the scenes, that’s all. I should probably mention that my router doesn’t have a USB port, which likely means the TC would be cheaper since to use this I think I’d need a new router too.

Anonymous

I’m using it with my Air and Time Machine and it works fine. I have the NAS plugged into my router with a network cable.

Colin Whooten

Mountain Lion? I’ve had 3 separate NAS drives setup now plugged into my router via a network cable work great for the first ~30 days and then start spitting out “Time Machine verified your backup and must start your backup over….”. I’m almost positive it is a ML issue, not a drive issue

Anonymous

I also have Mountain Lion. I’ve only been using it as a Time Machine for about a week, so this issue may crop up for me.

Anonymous

Colin, I wanted to update my experience. I did eventually get the same message you did with this drive. I’ve done some sluthing on the Apple boards and, while I’ve not found any solution, it appears to happen to a number of users over a number of different NAS.

This link contains a solution that others who have experienced this same problem have used to some success.

It also appears that other Mac users have had the same issue with their Time Capsule, so it sounds more like an OS issue than a NAS/TC issue.

Good luck!

Marius Piedallu van Wyk

The same error happend to me on Apple’s own hardware… it seems to be a Time Machine problem. (And I’ve read on forums I was not alone, and many other users have had this same problem with Time Capsule)

Marius Piedallu van Wyk

I used to have a Buffalo Linkstation actually, and also had problems with Time Machine. But I’ve had the same problems on my Airport Extreme with external drive attached. The times I tried Synology as a Time Machine client it seemed to work well enough… but the problem is mostly Apple here.

However, if I dont permanently mount remote volumes, I use CloudDrive… a way better solution for remote backup. (I then also created versioned backups of my cloud drive sources)

Not Now

I’m using Synology’s DS1513+ attached to an Airport Extreme. It backs up my Mac Mini, a MacBook Air and two MacBook Pros.

Right now I’m using an external drive attached to the NAS for Time Machine backups, but initially I was using a “native” Synology File Share.

I haven’t done a restore yet but TM seems happy.

Synology’s secret sauce is really their DSM software: it’s freaking awesome. Very responsive. A clean/simple UI (it looks like a typical desktop OS but rendered in a browser. It’s very extensible: not only does Synology provide some *great* free software, but there’s an active community of devs who make additional packages. I use mine as a Plex server, backup for my iTunes library, plus the TM backups, I mirror my Dropbox folder etc.

Choose your disks wisely though. NAS devices do all their own error-checking, consistency checks etc. So you should read the manufacturer’s recommendations carefully.

I’m using Western Digital 3TB “Red” drives. I bought 7 in Apr 2014 and one has already failed. The array continued working with no obvious performance issues. I swapped the dead drive out, told the array to rebuild, and the array rebuilt overnight with no data loss.

Peter

I have a DS212+ at the office for Time Machine backup, and general network file storage and distribution. We are in a mixed Mac-Windows environment.

I really can’t say how happy I am with this unit. The software is top-notch, the hardware well thought-out and the unit is nearly inaudible.

If the 213 is made by the same people who made the 212, then it’s gonna be a good thing.

Harish

I am not sure why you insist it is the same processor. I reviewed the spec and there were not 1 or 2 but 3 differences

1. It is a floating point processor

2. It is a dual issue processor which means, under most circumstances it can process two instructions in parallel.

Does anyone know how the DS213 with two RAID 3TB HDD compares to a couple of Western Digital 3TB My Cloud External HDD with the WD Safepoint feature?

Adam

The Synology is much more powerful than the Western Digital My Cloud. Check out some of the features on their website. It’s also going to give you faster data transfer rates.

The only thing about the Synology is that I recommend you bring your own backup software. Synology’s Data Replicator isn’t that great.

If you’re using a Mac, just use Time Machine. If you’re using Windows, either use the built-in Windows backup (you will need a ‘pro’ version of windows to backup to a network drive) or use 3rd party software. I’d recommend EaseUS Todo Backup.

prasanth

Any thoughts on a drobo as an alternative to this?

Tom

Hello

I’m looking for a NAS. Any idea when this article will be updated as indicated by the wait status?

Thanks!

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

It’s currently being researched! However, if you’d like to stay up to date and get notified of things early, we do offer a weekly newsletter. Feel free to sign up here-

It’s been in “Wait” status for more than 6mths. The utility of this site is really questionable at this stage. Would be better if this whole page was taken down and Wirecutter did not have a review, if that’s the case.

Brent Hall

When do you guys think you’ll actually get to this and post it?

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

We’re still researching. We offer a newsletter that keeps readers in the loop should you feel so inclined!

For all of you that have been waiting for an update, good news. I’ll probably be making a NAS purchase in the next few weeks. Wire Cutter is sure to update this review the day after I make the purchase.

Or perhaps as soon as the 30 day return window expires.

brucerb

Ummm…. we’re 10 days shy of 8 months of “WAIT” and 3 months since “Not quite. Sit tight!”. I know at the subscription rates we’re paying you guys we can’t be too demanding, but backup hardware would seem to be a pretty important category.

*News flash* Lost emails at IRS blamed on lack of backups because The Wirecutter said “WAIT”.

Let me know if you want to send me some test units so I can help out.

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

Our research process is long and arduous – especially when it comes to something like NAS storage. Please understand we do our best to get new guides up ASAP and as soon as this one is near completion, I will let you know personally

Matthias

And you offer all this information for free. Thanks – we can all wait

starborough

I bought one of these just before Christmas 2013.

I use it for file storage, and transferred my mail server to it soon after.

Whilst it does absolutely everything it says on the tin, the only problem is Synology itself.

I had religiously upgraded the firmware every time a new version came out, and everything was fine until 3 months ago, when , after a firmware upgrade it started rebooting itself. At first the reboot was every couple of hours so it wasn’t a huge deal. Then after another firmware upgrade it became worse until it was continuously rebooting.

I raised a support request with synology very early on, and checked their forums. A lot of people had experienced this, but synology took the line that it must be a hardware problem. I went through the various hoops they set me, but the one thing they would not consider was that the firmware was causing the problem.

I upgraded it again last night and instantly the problem improved although it didn’t go away.

I would not buy another one of these, and I am considering asking for my money back if they don’t stop being in denial.

http://natdavis.com/ Nat

Any chance of this being updated soon? It’s been on WAIT for nearly a year?

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

I promise we’re working on it as fast as possible without doing a shoddy job. If you subscribe to our newsletter, you’ll know a week in advance when this is incoming!

Not trying to pimp your inbox, just to keep you in the loop until this guide is updated. Then you can unsubscribe if you’d like!

The “Wait” box says that this NAS can be infected with “Bitcoin Ransomware”?

I assume this earns a permanent “Do Not Buy” recommendation.

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

Don’t buy it right now. That is for certain. We’re working on an update right now.

jackquack

The wait is killing me! I’m planning to buy the moment the new pick arrives.

confused0u812

Hmm, it’s been 2 years since the article came out on Nov 2012. My feeling is this is not going to get updated. That and besides the limited power savings, you’re better off with just using an old Windows box to act as your server. More powerful and capable.

Alex

Have you looked at the DS231j? This appears to be a similarly spec’d model, maybe a little newer. Nothing in the Amazon reviews indicate an issue.

Whohowwhat

Will there be an Update? I am waiting for a few months now…

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

We’re working on it!

brucerb

Guys, you posted the “wait while we refresh this guide” on October 29, 2013. It is now November 4, 2014. Surely you realize how absurd this looks. When (if?) the new review arrives, will it include hardware released in the past year? If the time to put together a review exceeds the time between new product releases, you will never have a relevant review.

waiter

This review is now TWO YEARS OLD. The excuses are not enough to justify this lack of update. If this category isn’t a priority for you (which it obviously isn’t) you should take it out of your directory, rather than leave something this antiquated up.

Eye Roller

Oh, shut up. Did you pay for your wirecutter subscription? Did you donate to the site? No. It’s hard enough to listen to the drivel created by our ridiculous “the customer is always right” mentality in this country, but it has now spread to FREE services. Free, meaning they owe you precisely NOTHING. Go to another site if you don’t like the way things run here. The excuses aren’t enough to justify? Guess what – they don’t have any responsibility to justify anything to you.

You are an unimportant nobody, whose opinion doesn’t matter except to the select few people who decide to tolerate you as friends/family (if any). Please remember that before commenting in the future.

A.I. is everywhere

I now believe “tony kaye” is a bot that has been providing variations on a canned response for 2 years. This article will never be updated. They would rather you subscribe to the newsletter. Again, I believe “tony kaye” is a bot. That is all.

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

Daisy, Daisy,

Give me your answer do!

I’m half crazy,

All for the love of you!

It won’t be a stylish marriage,

I can’t afford a carriage

But you’ll look sweet upon the seat

Of a bicycle made for two.

A.I. is everywhere

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe… Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those… moments… will be lost in time, like tears, in the rain…

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

I was hoping to keep this going but dang that takes the cake. As soon as I read this I had to go watch that scene!

Also, off-topic, but do you think Deckard was a replicant?

A.I. is everywhere

¯_(ツ)_/¯ It doesn’t matter. The point is made either way…

Blake

Any chance this article will be updated in time for the upcoming Christmas shopping season? I’m putting a NAS on my Christmas wish list I’m thinking that the newer Synology DS214 or DS214Play would be a good choice but I’d like to wait for TheWirecutter’s recommendation if it will be ready soon. Thanks for putting out such a great site (The Sweethome also!).

ASUSTOR 5 series is fantastic at transcoding multiple PLEX streams. I’m running the low end 5002T and it handles multiple streams really well. I did upgrade the RAM to 4GB though…

wtf

WTF: the top comment complaining about the wait-graphic is 2 (!) years old by now

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

Yes this guide is on wait status while we update, which takes time.

brucerb

Hey Tony! On the cordless phones review, you said on Nov 15 that the updated review is “crazy super close” and it was updated today, Dec 9. Reading this reminded me of this zombie NAS review. You haven’t used any superlatives yet in describing how close this one is and I’m wondering if this one is perhaps “super close” or maybe just “close”. I hold out no hope that it is “crazy super close” which apparently is a length of time under a month. Thanks!

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

1. The final cordless phone needed for that review was late. It pushed that review further back than we expected. Shit happens.

2. 3-4 weeks is ‘crazy close’ in Wirecutter/Sweethome review speak.

3. One thing that bothers me is when people complain or get upset when we don’t update sooner or if we take too long with a review. These are 1, 2 and sometimes 5,000 word guides that cover everything.

Things take time. And sometimes some guides take more time than others. The best I can do is talk with our staff, make sure we haven’t hit any snags, relay to them that readers are restless, and come back here and make sure people know it is being worked on but we can’t provide an ETA. That’s the best I can do.

brucerb

Tony –
1. Wasn’t complaining about the cordless review – no issue there.
2. OK…
3. You guys have to decide what you can and cannot do. At this point, well over a year after the first “Wait” signal went up in Oct 2013, I have no expectations for this review, and my “need” has long passed. I don’t know if the delay in this review is unique or if you have several reviews that are similarly delayed. However, I’m genuinely curious about what you guys come up with. So I’m coming by every month or so to see what’s up and to leave gently chiding comments. I know, it’s not like I’m not getting my moneys worth.
HOWEVER, (and this is not directed at you, perhaps you can bump it up to the editor-in-chief or whatever), I think it’s a bit irresponsible to continue to have this review at the same level of prominence as other more current reviews. I would suggest moving this to an archival area and more clearly labeling it as “out of date”.
More specifically, the featured model, the DS213, is no longer listed as a current model at the Synology web site. Yes you can get it at Amazon for $436, but note the price used to be $287 when this review was published. It has been replaced by the DS214 which is about $294 (and came out over a year ago in Oct 2013), or the DS213J which is about $200. So, to suggest that anyone should buy a DS213 for $436 is pretty bad advice.

I greatly appreciate that you respond to comments and that other editors here do as well. But I think the editors need to come up with a plan for dealing with out-of-date reviews.

Jesse

Looks like you guys are focusing on units that support transcoding and other fancy services. Would be awesome if there were a bare bones (less expensive) pick for people who will be using it with a separate HTPC (for transcoding & processor-intensive work) and just need storage space that can be mounted as a drive.

Thanks, that’s a good suggestion, but I’m actually looking for at least 6 TB of storage, and would love the option to upgrade to 10-12 eventually, which sounds like more than the budget option can take. I’d just rather get that storage space without paying extra for a fast processor for transcoding and fancy apps, since the HTPC will do the heavy lifting.

brucerb

Sounds like you only need an external “dumb” enclosure that can hold multiple drives and connect to your HTPC with a USB cable, not an NAS?

Jesse

Well, the other jobs of this NAS would be:
-running a bittorrent client (which I guess the HTPC could do)
-storing my 3TB iTunes library of lossless music, which I manage from iTunes running on my laptop & stream to my receiver via airplay from the laptop.

I suppose I could store the iTunes library and run iTunes on the HTPC, but it seems like a pain using the HTPC to manage the library, sync my iPhone, and rip CDs, all using the TV as a display and I guess a wireless keyboard and remote as input devices. I do some pretty intensive management of my music library (transcoding FLACs, selecting different subsets of the library to sync to the phone, ripping & editing metadata & artwork, managing smart playlists) so having clunky input devices seems like it would be annoying.

So complicated!

Francisco

Any new info here?

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

We’re working on a new guide. Stay tuned!

gsx

The NAS has been discontinued. Whats the replacement like?

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

You’ll have to wait for the updated guide.

Chris

How about if we want 3-5 drives for Raid5? Which would you recommend then?

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

Our update is coming. Ask then.

ml

Really looking to get a NAS for my home and wondering how close Wirecutter is to releasing the updated guide? Weeks? Months?

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

I personally heard our researcher say he was in the middle of testing them yesterday! Coming along nicely, but no ETA. Likely March if I had to throw a timeframe out there.

ml

Great, thank you for the update.

MC

Gave up waiting for your update. I know its an ever evolving market, but that just means you will never release a guide, or your guides will be out of date and judging by the frequency in which you update these things it could be the either.

I know its not an easy task, so I shouldn’t criticize, but a WAIT from August to an ETA release of March is a long time is nearly 3/4 of a yr.

Synology have just released the ds215j which I went ahead and bought. I had to make the judgement without your expert reviews on this occasion, but I couldn’t WAIT any longer.

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

I know its not an easy task, so I shouldn’t criticize

But still goes on to criticize.

fuzdis

Not a completely unfair criticism, though. Looks like the “Wait” flag went up 6 months ago. It seems like a communication update on what’s coming in the “Recent Updates” box would be helpful.

Ah, I see below you mention a possible March update timeframe. It’d be nice if that were in the Recent Updates box.

Plenty of Wirecutter pages say up front that there have been market changes, new product releases, CES updates, etc and that the recommendation may have changed. Doesn’t seem unfair to ask for the same here.

Thanks for the consistent high-quality reviews and taking the time to get it right.

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

We’re actively working on it. That’s all I can say.

fuzdis

Right, Tony. I appreciate that. My really little, minor point was just I wish the Wirecutter team said that at the top of the page instead of in the comments, like is done on other pages, so it doesn’t look abandoned 😉 Thanks again.

JoeH

Aug 4 is the last update, presumably to warn about the Synology software update. this article is actually years old. The comments date three years back.

‘You’re working on it’ is no longer relevant. This is now as helpful as a review for a 1997 Toyota Corolla. Other areas of your site you’re updating with a much greater frequency. You should take this page down if you don’t intend to have the time to support it in a timely fashion.

I’m/we’re not failing anything. I can only update readers with what I know – and what I know is that we’re actively working on this, but we’re also working on about 200 other things. NAS takes a backseat. It isn’t a serious priority at the moment.

I don’t know what else to say. It’s being worked on. When it’s done, it’s done.

Eric G.

I don’t think, “We’re working on it, wait for an update” can be used as a response for 18 months. I think everyone here appreciates the hard work you guys do but having the same thing answered over and over is a bit insulting.

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

I’m really sorry, but our hands are tied at the moment. When it’s ready, we’ll let you know. Until then I don’t know what else to tell you.

rahduke

This device needs to be removed as the best NAS in lieu of the recent releases of ASUSTOR 5 series, provides much more bang for the buck…. Do some homework wirecutter!

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

This guide is on wait status. It means we’re currently looking at other options in the NAS market. When this guide is updated, you’ll no longer see the giant WAIT stamp at the top of this page.

Dissapointed

On and off wait status since October 2013.

I don’t care if your working on it- your doing a poor job.

Hurry

Also look at Caldigit. Never used one of their RAID solutions, but curious.

And definitely hurt! I’m ready to get one!

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

This guide is actively being worked on but there is currently no ETA. Please sit tight while we do our best to get this piece updated without cutting corners. If you’d like to stay ahead of the game, please feel free to subscribe to our newsletter. Thanks!

So, for connecting to a DLNA AVR/network stereo receiver, will I benefit form the UI or powerful software of the units recommended here, or can I just get a simpler/cheaper piece of equipment to stream my FLAC/mp3 music to the various DLNA devices I have?

I guess this is an overly basic question and maybe my reading comprehension is low, but I’ve never used NAS before but would really like to, as I’m about have 3 network connected DLNA receivers. I understand I’ll have to convert from FLAC to ALAC. I’m just looking for suggestions for the cheapest storage solution that will be reliable and is fast enough not to hamper/bottle neck lossless file playback.

Thanks.

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

We’re in the process of updating this guide. Check back soon!

http://JonathanGraft.com/ Jon

I own the Synology DiskStation 214play and have to say that it was one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. Unfortunately it will be for sale soon as I’ve almost filled up my 8TB and need to upgrade to a similar model with more drive slots.

Michael Ikotun

Yeah, the 214play was one of my best purchases too – but my 12TB filled up pretty quickly. Not sure about upgrading soon though.

dbaps

Pay the money and buy the 1815+. Plenty of room for expansion. You can put a couple of mirrored SSD’s for read/write caching. Sure it costs a lot more. But in the long run, you will be able to keep it for many many years, tackle any feature Synology has for it, setup virtualization. Plus you can even add one or two more 5-drive expansions. I know people will say it’s for a business. But I don’t really think so. We aren’t talking about a several thounsand dolar nas. You can always just migrate you disks over and expand this disks. Plus I think the 1815+ is a better deal than the 1515+.

ivan

QNAP TS-853 Pro or TVS-871 series have much better feature set, spec, and performance than synology ones. It runs Windows OS VMs on the NAS while serves as a file server, can support full text content search to quickly locate the data you need, with HDMI which can playback video contents by the built-in Kodi player. it is the business grade, but also a better choice if u wanna put it at home.

dbaps

Actually I have one of each. From a hardware perspective I totally agree with you. However the Synology software is way better than QNaps…I will say this, Qnap has come a long way with their software. But it’s still not as good as the Synology software. I do like the new Qnap search utility. I’ve been waiting for this since about 2010.

ivan

I own both too. including other brands. Synology can do less than 60% of what my QNAP can do. For the storage server & data sharing features, those are just about the same. For the extra software features from qnap, such as virtualization station, on-device Windows OS VM, HD station & built-in Kodi/ XBMC player… once jump on qnap boat, will never go back to synology.

Mark Sigler

DS-415+ is going to replace the QNAP TS-431+ that I just bought to replace a DS-212j. I think the DS415+ is worth the extra $100 over the DS-414play with much more CPU and memory. Also note that Plex can’t use the transcoder in the DS-x14play units.

whiskeychief

Did you have any concerns about the Ransomware outbreak last year and did that make you reconsider buying another NAS from the same company?

http://JonathanGraft.com/ Jon

Not at all. I’m not entirely sure how the ransomware gets onto your NAS, but I have a network firewall which should prevent intruders from getting into my network, the login credentials for my NAS are very strong (password was generated using 1Password and is very long and random) and I only download from sites that I trust.

whiskeychief

There has been another Synology security flaw revealed and patched as of May 2015. (See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/27/synology_patch/) A vulnerability in some photo-storage feature allowed the public internet to see private photos.
I’m at the point where I don’t know that I can trust any of these type of devices. Even if you keep 100% patched there is no assurance of security — it doesn’t seem worth the risk.

whiskeychief

I’m also “not entirely sure how the ransomware gets onto your NAS”, as there don’t seem to be any details about how Synolocker got onto devices (what they call the “vector”) and _why_ the company believes the latest versions patch the flaw.
I would have thought that such a terrible security flaw would earn Wirecutter’s “avoid” rating or possibly put the whole category of these devices in doubt.

poopmast

Synology in the last year has pushed out updates for security flaws faster than any vendor(Microsoft, Apple, Oracle) I have seen, sometimes as many as two updates in one week.

I’d like to see some data on it too but, i think theres probably some more well-liked brands that might be a better choice.

Jeewan

Thanks!

Aquifel

I personally have a QNAP TS-431 that i bought to replace an aging 2-bay Qnap NAS, its a great little device, i bought it because i just assumed that its low-power CPU would use less power than its more powerful TS-451 sibling (which is a bigger TS-251).

Getting to the point, I never expected that the power usage on the TS-251 would be so low, that is impressive, seeing that, i definitely should have done more research before going with a ‘low-power’ arm based NAS, i should have got the recommended ‘upgrade’ pick, the TS-451, could have actually had full featured plex streaming on that thing.

Side note: about the plastic housing in QNap’s smaller devices, the 2-bays frequently use that ‘cheap’ feeling plastic, almost all of their 4-bays that i’ve seen use a much more durable metallic material (including my TS-431). Also, even though, it does feel cheap, i’ve yet to have any pieces break on me on my old one that i’ve had for about 3-4 years now.

Daniel Byon

How are you going to do a NAS review and NOT include the Drobo??? They’re basically QNAP’s biggest competitor, and they’re much easier to use

Jeewan

The 5N is $500 and I think the only one that has an Ethernet port that is not for SMB’s. But I would like to hear there thought on it as well.

http://richardstanford.com/ Richard Stanford

Its also 5 bays and has support for SSD caching. $500 isn’t such a huge stretch over $300 considering the size difference and the fact that both prices are before disks.

http://coreyh.com coreyh

Agree that omitting the Drobo from this review is a big oversight.

Nathan Edwards

The 5N is a $500, five-bay NAS. We focused on two-bay NAS around $300, since we think that’s the sweet spot for most home users. Drobo does not have a two-bay NAS.

ivan

Drobo can do less than 30% of what my Qnap can do.

P-Man

The prices shown for the three options in the little graphic highlights at the top are misleading.

Looks like the three products are all roughly the same price (~$300), and that your choice is based on ease of use. But the MyCloud includes 4TB of disk space, whereas the other two are diskless (and their prices more than double if you add disks to the configuration on Amazon).

The review does mention the disklessness (but not the price doubling), but you have to read it fairly closely to figure that out. And it seems to just suggest that the MyCloud is easier to use because the disks are preconfigured for you. Seems to be that getting the disks “for free” (compared to the other two) is a bit more than “easier to use”.

I imagine there are users who will buy their own disk drives for the first two products, and might well save money compared to the preconfigured options shown on Amazon. That’s cool.

On the other hand, you might get someone less sophisticated ordering the diskless NAS system by mistake and getting irritated when they discover it doesn’t store much data. ;-(

So this review should make it clearer what the total price (or perhaps price range) of a NAS system WITH disk drives will be, and not just highlight the diskless NAS prices.

Nathan Edwards

It should be clear in the guide, but I’ll have the widgets updated to be more clear.

Ryan

What happened to the updated budget pick that was going to be included within this article according to the last update on the Zyxel? I have been looking pretty hard at picking up a WD My Cloud 4tb for media streaming duties and general remote cloud access but waiting to see what you folks had to say about the single bay, diskful market.

Thanks,
Ryan

Nathan Edwards

We are not recommending a single-bay NAS because we don’t think it’s worth having a network-attached drive without any sort of data redundancy. The WD My Cloud Mirror is our budget pick.

Ryan

Nathan,

Good to know! While I disagree, I respect your reasoning for the mirror pick. I may even reconsider my lack of requirement for redundancy (which is NOT a backup). All that said, perhaps keeping the terminology of “budget pick” could prevent this confusion in the future. Those of us who frequent the site have, in my opinion, somewhat gotten used to the layout of the reviews.

Given the screenshots and discussion about using an HTC phone, it seems like the testing did not include Macs. The review does not for example discuss the drive formatting, which can be important to Mac users: some NAS units can only be formatted in FAT32 which is potentially problematic because some Apple metadata may not be stored accurately if the backup NAS stores files in a Finder-readable format.

More generally, my understanding is that an OS X bootable duplicate cannot be made on a NAS, so if one’s boot disk crashes you need a separate bootable drive (or cloned drive), and the only option for that is to use specialized backup software (like SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner) directly to a non-NAS hard drive.

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

We made certain that all the NAS’ setups tested were compatible with OS X/Time Machine software-

A NAS needs to be easy to set up as a network file server, simple to configure for local computer backup, and ready to use for streaming video, music, and photos. Based on the results of the survey, we looked for NAS devices that support computer backup via Windows, Time Machine, and rsync; music streaming via DLNA and iTunes; VPN and FTP access; and cloud backup.

Its Linux-based OS is more complicated than most people are used to, but anyone who has worked with a Windows or Mac desktop should be able to set it up.

But will forward along just to double-check

A bonus: The TS-251 is the only NAS we tested that supports virtualization, so you can run Windows, Mac, UNIX, Linux, and Android virtual machines on it.

The My Cloud Mirror’s interface also offers no way to interact with a connected flash drive. You can’t just use the interface’s file manager to copy files to and from the USB drive; instead you must manually map to the connected USB drive from Windows Explorer or your Mac’s Finder. This is not the case with the other two NAS devices.

sioboop

I have a question and I am not sure the answer above gives me that information I need.I am just starting to cut the cable cord and I am trying to decide which NAS I should get. I have a Surface Pro 3, two Windows laptops with docking stations, and a MAC mini, with an iPhone, iPod, iPad; and one each Samsung and LG phones; plus Samsung Note12.2, and a Samsung Note 10.1 (phasing out for the 12.2); two Roku 2’s one Roku 3 and an ancient Wii; Cannon printer connected to the Mac and HP printer connected to one of the laptops. Will I be able to connect all of these devices and access files on the NAS from all of these devices? Obviously, I am concerned about the Mac devices not being able to share nicely with the others… Am I asking too much from a network NAS with all of thees devices?

Any suggestions will help.
Siobhan

Nathan Edwards

Both the QNAP and Synology use ext4 for their internal formatting; files saved to the NAS from your Mac via AFP should contain metadata in .DS_Store files that your Finder can read.

As for your second comment, it looks like you’re correct; you need a direct-attached hard drive to create a bootable duplicate. That will be faster and more reliable anyway. All these NAS can be used for Time Machine backups, though.

Yossarian

Any possible way of getting a mention for custom NAS setups and how they compare? As an owner of a custom NAS myself, I know they’re not ideal for everyone, but the options they can afford are quite awesome for a tier higher in price.

Samir Madi

Hi, this might be a simple answer.. but with ALL NAS’s i want a simple way to get data on there without the need for a PC specifically – what I mean is that say we have a Digital Camera, take photos all day, come home and plug it into the NAS – how can we get that data in the folder and directory I want easily???? or say photos from my Iphone.. i want to sync the photos by just plugging it into the NAS, walk away and my photos are saved on the NAS and accessible.. whats the best way to do this ??

I am setting up a Media centre for friend and want an easy and quick way to transfer data to the NAS, painlessly… any ideas??

Hope that makes sense…

Sam

ivan

QNAP Intel based NAS, TS-x51 and TS-x53 series above. The HDMI interface feature is very cool, it is the unique solution like no other. all the stored media collections, video and photo can be displayed directly on the TV without additional player. I also enjoy the feature of virtualization hypervisor built-in, that you can run Widnows OS or other VM on the same QNAP storage device. The mobile app to access files, VM, and data remotely as personal cloud solution is also impressing

Michael

I’ve read many times that you shouldn’t use a NAS for “heavy-duty transcoding” of 1080p video, but is a NAS like the QNAP Turbo NAS TS-251 or the Synology DiskStation DS214 suitable if the only transcoding you care about is music files? All I use Plex for is my music collection (and maybe some occasional sharing of home videos taken with a smartphone or tablet, but the music is the real priority). I’m wondering if I can invest in a NAS alone or if I should still invest in an inexpensive PC plus a NAS. Thanks.

TheLievense

I wish you guys had a “power user” option with a 4 or 6 bay device. Some people (especially people who have large movie collections) a 2 bay device simply isn’t going to be enough.

Barry Resnik

I currently use Dropbox/Carousel to automatically wirelessly upload photos from my iPhone. Is there a way to set this up with the WD My Cloud?

Mark Sigler

I recently purchased a QNAP TS-431+ on Woot for $249, which seemed a bargain. I filled it with four 4TB WD Red drives, and started transferring from Synology 212j. However, my primary purpose is a media center for movies, tv and music, and so far the QNAP software i lacking compared to the Synology, especially in Video Station and RSS Mgr. The Qvideo mobile app is no match for DS Video. I can use the Syn apps as-is, but with QNAP I would need Plex which is not yet ported to the new ARM CPU in the TS-431+. Support response has been slow too. I am going to spend the money and get a DS-415+. I would like to see a high perf 2 bay, like the TS-215 but with better media software. Synology is missing the HDMI, but the software is better. Did I mention the software?

Chet Jet

Thanks, I bought the QNAP TS-451 from Fry’s on sale at $349. Still on the learning curve.

Just for today the QNAP TS-251 is on sale at Newegg for $219. It’s $249 but if you use promo code 0728UWN23 you get $30 off.

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

Thanks for the tip!

http://about.barronroth.com Barron Roth

Looking for a 4-bay NAS, would RAID5 be the most desirable configuration?

http://thewirecutter.com/ tony kaye

For a NAS with 4 bays, we like the QNAP 4-Bay model & a RAID 5, 6 or 10 setup.

Samara Lynn has over fifteen years' experience in Information Technology and is now a freelance journalist and analyst who has written for sites and publications including CRNTech, PC Magazine and Tom's Hardware. She founded SmartLairs.com, a site dedicated to smart home and Wi-Fi technology.

After polling 1,200 Wirecutter readers and testing 27 tents, we found the three-person Big Agnes Blacktail 3 is the best tent for your camping needs. It’s more durable and better built than competing tents yet uses lighter-weight materials. Plus, its cheery lime-green and white color scheme creates a nicer ambiance than the orange or blue on competing tents, and that can help to boost your mood if you find yourself inside the tent on dismal days.